Puss in Boots

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Puss in Boots in a 19th century engraving by Gustave Doré

Puss in Boots is a fairy tale ( ATU 545B). It was only in the first edition of 1812 as No. 33 (KHM 33a) in the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm . In the modern edition edited by Heinz Rölleke , it can be found as No. 5 in the appendix.

Content and appreciation

Sculpture by Ignatius Taschner at the Märchenbrunnen in the Volkspark Friedrichshain , Berlin 1913
Gustave Doré illustration for Charles Perrault's Le Maître chat ou le chat botté
Puss in Boots ( Münchener Bilderbogen , Moritz von Schwind 1850)

After the death of a miller, the eldest son gets the mill, the second a donkey and the third a tomcat who is apparently only good for making gloves out of his fur. However, the cat holds out the prospect of help if his new owner has a pair of boots made for him instead so that he can be seen among the people. That's how it happens. The tomcat now catches partridges in a sack , gives them to the king of the country as a gift from his master, the count, and is rewarded with gold for this. Later the tomcat lets the alleged count bathe “spinning naked” in a lake that the king passes with his daughter on an excursion and complains that a thief stole his master's clothes. The king has his own clothes fetched and the supposed count ride along in the carriage. The tomcat rushes ahead and makes the workers in the fields and woods answer the king's question that the lands belonged to the count. The cat tempts their true master, a powerful magician, to demonstrate to him that he can even transform himself into a little mouse in order to eat him up and take possession of his castle for the miller's son. "Then the princess and the count were promised, and when the king died he became king, while Puss in Boots was first minister."

The fairy tale, which works with simple motifs of the question of injustice in inheritance, the gratitude of the hangover and finally the luck that ultimately turns the supposedly inferior man into a wealthy man, has been handed down in many variants. Even the Grimms themselves noted that they knew a version of Puss in Boots in Le chat botté by Charles Perrault , which presumably has Italian origins, but at least was already recorded by Giovanni Francesco Straparola .

The fairy tale was processed by Ludwig Tieck in the comedy of the same name, The Puss in Boots , which was published in 1797 but only premiered on April 20, 1844 in Berlin , before the edition by the Brothers Grimm . There also seem to be some parallels to Joseph von Eichendorff's From the Life of a Good-for- nothing from 1826, at least underground, although here it is also the miller's boy himself who sets out to seek his fortune. Over the years of its reception, the material itself reached the public in countless adaptations for children and finally in a few film adaptations.

origin

Wilhelm Grimm apparently had the fairy tale orally from Jeanette Hassenpflug, according to his note . He later deleted it because of the similarity to Le Maître Chat ou le Chat botté in Charles Perrault's Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités: Contes de ma mère l'Oye (1697). Jeanette was the daughter of a French-speaking Huguenot family. German translations by Perrault had already appeared in the 18th century. Wilhelm edited the text himself both before and after printing. Perrault's social antagonisms were sublimated, evaluations were dropped. The text now appears as a fluctuating folk tale and has been given popular-sounding phrases.

Apparently the early Italian versions of the fairy tale had no influence: Costantino Fortunato in Giovanni Francesco Straparola's Merry Nights 11.1 and Cagliuso in Giambattista Basile's Pentameron 2.4. Both animal helpers and master thieves have a long literary tradition (e.g. KHM 60 , 104a or 68 , 192 ). Hans-Jörg Uther compares Reineke Fuchs , Der Pfaffe Amis , Till Eulenspiegel , Lazarillo de Tormes .

interpretation

Eugen Drewermann analyzes how the smart cat personifies his master's will to survive in an emergency, which the division of the estate takes no account of. It fits the seemingly harmless struggle for survival as an attitude to life. Drewermann compares him to schizoid or narcissistic advisors in politics and business, but with him it is the hubris of the hopeless. Since he has nothing, his company relies on the moral credit of his client, as unnatural as the boots are for a cat. He bites his own appetite to buy into the political rulers. In addition, the love of the king's daughter and the pitifulness of his nakedness are instrumentalized. His existential fear becomes that of others, lest they name his lie. Obviously, neither the workers nor the king cares who really owns what. What the hero's encounter with his magical self could be in other fairy tales is only the replacement of a great deceiver by a new one, whereby his castle today corresponds most closely to a bank tower. This is how this social satire (similar to Goethe's Reineke Fuchs ) differs from real magical tales like The Poor Miller's Boy and the Kitten , which take love seriously as the only way out.

Wilhelm Salber formulates a feeling of unsuccessful accommodation in the world as the main configuration, which is why one's own longings are lived separately in the helpful cat.

reception

Adaptation for opera

  • In 1913, the children's opera Puss in Boots by the Russian composer César Cui (1835-1918) premiered in Saint Petersburg .
  • The Spanish composer Xavier Montsalvatge (1912–2002) wrote the opera “Puss in Boots” (El Gato con Botas) in 1947. It premiered in January 1948 at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona. The libretto was newly translated into German in 2006 by Mechthild von Schoenebeck.
  • Günter Bialas : "Puss in Boots or How to Play the Game". Comic opera in 2 acts. Libretto: Tankred Dorst (after Ludwig Tieck ). Premiere May 15, 1975 Schwetzingen (Festival; Ensemble of the Hamburg State Opera). New version: 1987 Munich

Movie

Puss in Boots plays an important supporting role in the computer-animated films Shrek 2 , Shrek the Third and Shrek Forever After .

theatre

  • Ludwig Tieck: Puss in Boots . A children's fairy tale in three acts, with interludes, a prologue and epilogues. 1797.
  • Franz Graf von Pocci : Muzl, Puss in Boots . Fairy tales in 3 lifts. Munich 1861.
  • Puss in Boots. A children's fairy tale game in 3 pictures by Robert Bürkner .
  • Revised by Kurt-Achim Köweker and Rainer Antoine. Music by Peter Janssens .

Figure & marionette theater

literature

In Janosch's parody, the cat shows Hans how unhappy the rich are with houses, cars and expensive food, and he lives happily while the older brothers die hunting and of heart attacks.

Comic

cartoon

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm: Children's and Household Tales (1812-15): 33. Puss in Boots at Zeno.org . and splinter-naked, adj. . In: Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm : German Dictionary . Hirzel, Leipzig 1854–1961 ( woerterbuchnetz.de , University of Trier).
  2. ↑ a b Hans-Jörg Uther: Handbook on the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm. de Gruyter, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 , p. 430.
  3. ↑ Hans-Jörg Uther: Handbook on the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm. de Gruyter, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 , pp. 431-432.
  4. ↑ Hans-Jörg Uther: Handbook on the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm. de Gruyter, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 , p. 434.
  5. ↑ Eugen Drewermann: From the power of money or fairy tales to the economy . Patmos, Düsseldorf 2007, ISBN 978-3-491-21002-8 , pp. 73-122.
  6. ^ Wilhelm Salber: fairy tale analysis. 2nd Edition. Bouvier Verlag, Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-416-02899-6 , pp. 64-68, 138.
  7. ↑ [1]
  8. ^ "Puss in Boots - the musical" accessed on February 6, 2017
  9. ↑ Janosch: Puss in Boots. In: Janosch tells Grimm's fairy tale. Fifty selected fairy tales, retold for today's children. With drawings by Janosch. 8th edition. Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim and Basel 1983, ISBN 3-407-80213-7 , pp. 93-101.

Web links

Commons : Puss in Boots  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Puss in Boots  - Sources and full texts
Wikisource: Charles Perrault: Le Maître chat ou le Chat botté  - Sources and full texts (French)